Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
In the heyday of Palm organizers, when even the speeds of 3G data seemed like a distant fantasy, a debate raged as to whether the future of pocket devices could belong to one or two devices. Those who favored two de...

All-new dial-in experience! See below -- do not call into Talkshoe, we won't be there. Be sure to set up Fuze Meeting before the show if you want to join in live.
We come, once again, to Sunday evening, and with that comes the TUAW talkcast!
Tonight's topics will include the usual Apple-related ne...

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
Regardless of what one may think about the potential for smartwatches, one of the most exciting things about a new device category is that there is so much experimentation with form factors and capabilities. We've a...

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
Crowdfunding has been a boon to companies that are bringing some of the most exciting and innovative devices to market. But sometimes things go wrong. Last March, the first of a two-part Switched On discussed some o...

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
Inexpensive 7-inch tablets were everywhere in 2013 and became, as Switched On noted in December, a populist platform that fulfilled the promise of the sub-$100 PC. But despite their exceptional portability, aided by...

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
Sony recently bid farewell to three device categories. The long-struggling Japanese consumer electronics giant is selling off its PC division, spinning out its TV group into a separate company and getting out of the...

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
Some of today's leading wearable devices are, at their core, little more than souped-up pedometers. Their once-dim monochrome LCD screens have migrated from atoms to bits that connect to the internet, allowing them ...

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
It's that special time of year between holiday sales and the pre-CES hype cycle that presents an opportunity to consider some of the most innovative devices of the year. Switched On is proud to present the 2013 Salu...

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
The last Switched On discussed the contrast between the $100 laptop concept of 2006 and the $100 tablet reality of 2013. In that case, an idea that didn't bear fruit was succeeded years later by a different approach...

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
Much like George Orwell's classic 1984, wars continue in the technology industry without seeming regard for who the enemy is or who it once was. Take, for example, Nokia's embrace of Windows Phone and Microsoft's su...

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
In April, Evernote CEO Phil Libin announced his company was getting into the hardware business -- gradually, at first, by partnering with others. Carrying through on that intention at the company's third developer's...

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
It is difficult enough to turn around one niche product category and make it successful, as Apple did with the iPad. But combining two marketplace failures is almost certainly a recipe for disaster. FiLIP, the new k...

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
In a Microsoft strategy that embraces contradiction -- licensing software while trying to build its own devices -- it is unsurprising that goals for the Surface support competing priorities. On one hand, it is a sho...

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
On September 2, Microsoft announced that it would pay $7.2 billion for Nokia's handset business, including its smartphones and Asha phones aimed at consumers in developing economies. Key personnel from that business...

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
Motorola's return to the smartphone market after a year ensconced in Googliness raised many questions about how the handset pioneer would introduce a competitive smartphone without appearing to have most-favored man...

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
In that human-behavior lab known as the New York City subway, a vacationing family recently sought to get in a group self-portrait on their last day in the Big Apple. But the rocking train kept thwarting the capture...

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
Connor "Con" Sumer looked up at the beast that stalked him ever since flat-panel TV sales began to flatten out. "Stereoscopy," he thought, "the word even sounded like an uncomfortable medical procedure." This was fa...

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
The recent announcement by Barnes & Noble that it would discontinue its Nook tablets marked the exit of what once promised to be a strong rival to Amazon, at least among bibliophiles. Barnes & Noble's entry ...

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
The Mac Pro might have been worthy of the "One More Thing" kinds of reveals that Steve Jobs used to do at Apple events. Despite being foreshadowed by Tim Cook as a product the company was going to make in the US, it...